What was going on in Maine 75 years ago? Thanks to Chester Hussey of Walnut Street, I have had an opportunity to peruse in detail the pages of the Maine State Year Book for 1873-74. Already the volume had become known by its modern name of the Maine Register, for that is the title given on the spine of the book.<\/p>\n
Sidney Perham of Paris was then Governor of Maine; our U. S. Senators were Lot M. Morrill and Hannibal Hamlin. They served in a Senate of 74 members, instead of the present 96, because no longer than 75 years ago, at a time that a few people still living can remember, there were only 37 states. Arizona, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Montana, utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Washington and Wyoming had not yet been accepted into the Union. In fact one of them, Oklahoma, didn’t exist even on the map, because it was only a part of the great Indian Territory.<\/p>\n
Maine then had five representatives to Congress; two more than we are now allowed. They were John H. Burleigh of South Berwick, William P. Frye of Lewiston, James G. Blaine of Augusta, Samuel F. Hersey of Bangor and Eugene Hale of Ellsworth. Although in 1873 no Waterville man was on the Governor’s Council and none held any of the thirty appointive offices in the state government at Augusta, a Waterville citizen, Edmund F. Webb, was speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, and only two years earlier, in the itmnediate1y preceding legislature, Reuben Foster, another Waterville man, had been President of the Maine Senate.<\/p>\n
Back there, 75 years ago, the closer political issues came home to the voter, the more he was interested. In the state election in September a total of more than 127,000 votes were cast, but two months later, in the November presidential election, only 90,000 went to the polls. For Governor, Perham, .the Republican, got 72,000 to 55,000 for Kimball, .the Democrat, a plurality of 17,000. For President, Grant got 61,000 to Greeley’s 29,000, a plurality of 32,000.<\/p>\n
Although it is diverting from our central topic of what was going on in Maine 75 years ago, this mention of the 1872 elections leads us to set straight a wrong impression that many people have about political control in Maine before the Civil War. Today Maine is looked upon by the rest of the country as an extremely conservative state, economically and politically. So it is carelessly assumed that in the years before 1860 the conservative Whig party, supporters of Henry Clay and antagonists of Andrew Jackson and his successors, must have controlled a majority of Maine votes.<\/p>\n
The facts are exactly the opposite. In 1830 the state election had been close. By a plurality of less than 2,000 votes, Samuel E. Smith of Wiscasset, the Democratic candidate, had beaten the Whig incumbent, Governor Jonathan Hunton of Readfield. Judge Smith was a man of exceptional ability and wide popularity. Under his leadership — he served three terms as Governor — the Democratic party gained an ascendency which was only twice interrupted in 25 years. Those two interruptions are interesting because they reveal the bitter political struggle that went on for a dozen years between two of the most vigorous fighters of the old days of hard hitting politics. Those two men were John Fairfield of Saco and Edward Kent of Bangor. Fairfield, the Democrat, was elected Governor four times, and every time Kent was his opponent. Twice only, in 1$37 and 1840, did Kent beat the Saco man; the first time by only 579 votes, the second time by only 567 votes in a total of 91,000. After<\/p>\n
Fairfield went to the U. S. Senate in 1843 and Kent died, the Democrats elected their Governors by large majorities for ten successive elections. Not until the sensational rise of the Know Nothing party in 1854 was their supremacy upset. In that year Anson P. Morrill of Readfield, supported by Maine boss of the Know Nothings, Solon Chase, famous owner of “them steers”, got more votes than did the Democratic and Whig candidates combined. By the next year, 1855, most of the Know Nothings and many of the Whigs had already joined the newly formed Republican party. It may be a fact, as certain historians allege, that present Republican strength in Maine is because the party got an early start in this state. A year before General Fremont became the first Republican candidate for President, and five years before the party elected its first president, Abraham Lincoln, Maine had a Republican Governor. The insecurity of the party labels in those hectic times is apparent when we note that Maine’S first Republican Governor was the same Anson P. Morrill who had been elected as the Know Nothing candidate the year before.<\/p>\n
Now let us get back to our original topic of Maine in 1873. More specifically let us consider Waterville in 1873. In that year the Maine Register recorded among Waterville merchants and manufacturers just three names now familiar: Arnold, Redington and Hathaway. The book lists Arnold and Meader, hardware; C. H. Redington, furniture and crockery; and C. F. Hathaway, manufacturer of shirts. By the way, as I sat in the big audience that so thoroughly enjoyed and so enthusiastically applauded the Colby Varsity Show, I noted in the program the attractive advertisement of the present Hathaway Company, and I wondered what the founder of the business would have thought. For C. F. Hathaway is said to have been a very austere, ultra-puritanical man. He and his wife dressed in the simplest black. It is even alleged that he would never permit ornamental buttons on either her clothes or his. He was devoutly, Calvinistically religious, regarded even in his conservative day as a stern fundamentalist.<\/p>\n
What would Mr. Hathaway have thought of the gay music, the witty dialog, and the feminine dress that marked the excellent musical comedy for which two Waterville boys, Kenneth Jacobson and Bob Rosenthal, were responsible; all of the play’s catchy music being the composition of Jacobs9n, and the book the work of Rosenthal. Well, you know perfectly well what Mr. Hathaway, or any church officer of his time would have thought. He wouldn’t, for anything, attend even the theater, to say nothing of a musical show. That sort.of thing was the sure road to hell.<\/p>\n
But what of Mr. Hathaway, if he were living today? We easily make the mistake of thinking that people stand still even if the world does not. That very seldom happens. The truth is that times change because people change. No more stupid saying was ever voiced than the statement, “You can’t change human nature.” Of course you can. It is changing: all the <\/strong>time. <\/strong>So as I looked at the Varsity Show program, I am sure that my second thoughts about Mr. Hathaway were better than my first. If he lived in Waterville today, he would probably have enjoyed that Varsity Show just as much as any of the rest of us. So change the times \u2022 . Although only three names well recognized today appeared among the merchants of 1873, there were names in other vocations that have long been honored in this community. L. T. Boothby and E. R. Drummond were insurance agents, and the latter was town clerk. Solyman Heath was president of the Ticonic National Bank.<\/p>\n The selectmen were Reuben Foster, then president of the Waterville Savings Bank, Winthrop Morrill and Noah Boothby. The town had six doctors of whom one was Frederick C. Thayer. There were four lawyers, the other two besides Mr. Heath and Mr. Foster being E. F. Webb and F. A. Waldron. A citizen whom everyone knew in those days was C. R. McFadden. In 1873 he was postmaster, auctioneer, and dry goods merchant. One of the justices of the peace was Reuben W. Dunn. That 75 year old Maine Register lists only six manufacturing plants in Waterville. Besides C. F. Hathaway and Company, what was later to be the Waterville Iron Works was listed as Webber and Haviland, machinery and castings. The other four were J. Furbish, doors, sash and blinds; I. S. Bangs, flour; W. H. Dow and Company, furniture; and Roberts and Marston, boot-shanks. No weaving of cotton and woolen textiles, no making of paper, no pie plates and plastics, no spools and. dowels. In fact the factories were then commensurate with the size of the town, for the population totaled 4,852 and the valuation of all property was less than two million dollars.<\/p>\n The 1873 clergymen were H. S. Burrage at the Baptist, James Cameron at the Congregationalist, A. W. Pottle at the Methodist, J. o. Skinner at the Universalist and D. H. Sheldon at the Unitarian. The beloved Father Charland had not then come to st. Francis; the pastor there was Father Halde. Mentioning Colby College, then called Colby University, the 1873 Register lists the entire faculty, consisting of just seven persons: James T. Champlin, president; Samuel K. Smith, rhetoric; John B. Foster, ancient languages; Moses Lyford, mathematics; Charles E. Hamlin, chemistry; Edward W. Hall, modern languages; Julian D. Taylor, tutor. It is interesting evidence of the long linkages of time that I personally knew two of those seven faculty members, though it was long after 1873 before I knew them. They were Edward W. Hall and Julian D. Taylor. As many of our listeners know, Dr. Taylor was an active member of the Colby faculty for 68 years.<\/p>\n Now, tonight, let us have a little bit more about that ill-fated steamer, the City of Waterville. The late J. F. Hill and the late Fred Arnold were not the last survivors of the maiden voyage of that unlucky steamer. One man still living also took that embarassing trip from Bangor to Waterville 60 years ago. He is Albert F. Drummond, retired head of the Waterville Savings Bank. He missed the Bangor celebration — said to have been a wild one — the night before the sailing, but he arrived in Bangor on the morning train in time to join the party that started on the steamer for Waterville. Mr. Drummond says the City of Waterville was part of a great vision and an ambitious plan of William T. Haines to make Waterville the head of navigation on the Kennebec. It couldn’t be done. Not only was the railroad, with two approaches to Waterville from the west, getting the traffic, but above Augusta the old Kennebec just wasn’t suitable for steamers large enough to warrant the expense of operation.<\/p>\n Mr. David Howard, manager of the Colby College bookstore, has very kindly given me a memorable photograph of one of the old-time snow rollers. It shows a roller in front of the J. H. Crosby farm on the Sunday River in Newry, Maine, and the original negative from which Mr. Howard has made a fine, clear print was taken in 1922. The snow was deep everywhere in Maine that yea~. I was then living in Portland, which had a record 126 inches of snow that winter. To make things worse, there was a serious coal strike, and fuel was hard to get. The unusually deep snow doubtless accounts for eight horses being hitched to the roller. Besides the driver, two other men are perched atop the vehicle. Standing beside it is a teen-age boy with a snow shovel, and three smaller youngsters are looking on. The nigh horse of the leaders is a handsome white fellow. While all the other horses in the picture are hanging tired heads, he holds his nobly erect, with alert ears turned forward and nostrils opened wide. I should like to have driven that horse.<\/p>\n About a dozen years ago it was my privilege to introduce to a Waterville audience the lecturer and author, Maurice Hindus, who spoke on Czechoslovakia, saying that the nation which Hitler’s legions had just overrun would surely rise again. Then in 1946 I heard that son of a Czech patriot father and an American mother — <\/strong>Jan Mazaryk — <\/strong>tell the audience at the Herald-Tribune Forum how his country was already rising from the ashes of the war. Two years later Mazaryk was dead, disillusioned and frustrated by what had happened to his country. Now at the turn of the year into the middle of the twentieth century, Czechoslovakia presents to all the world the sorry spectacle of what happens when Communists take over a country.<\/p>\n Government workers are immediately purged. Newspapermen must follow the party line or go to jail. Leaders of all political parties must accept merger with the Communist front or be liquidated. All the courts are staffed by Communists. All businesses with more than 50 employees are taken over by the government. All farms of more than 125 acres are operated directly by the government smaller farmers are for.ced to join Communist cooperatives. Every teacher must follow the party line or lose his job. Priests and ministers must become state employees or be accused of treason. Church property is seized and church funds confiscated.<\/p>\n That is what happened to the proud little country of which Maurice Hindus spoke so feelingly here in Waterville a dozen years ago. That is what has happened to Poland and Hungary. That is what the Communists are determined shall happen in Italy and France. perhaps it will. But on one point every good American is determined: it shall not happen here.<\/p>\n Year: 1949<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #47, broadcast on December 18, 1949<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[741,35314],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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